Howling
by Kintaraheart
Summary: One sound was a comfort, the other brought about nightmares, yet both sounds were so similar.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey look a wild story appeared!**

 **I swear I have no self control. Oh well.**

 **I had this moment pop into my head today, and it wouldn't let me not write it. So yeah. But that's ok, this isn't as random of a little story idea as it seems because this is my main character here. And I've spent over eight years developing a story for him. His past and all the details of his life and his personality and basically everything about him are so extensive that it's as if he's a person who is very close to me.**

 **I don't know whether or not if I should continue this, though. I guess it depends on what kind of feedback I get. For some reason I'm almost nervous to tell his stories, yet I also feel as if... I have to. Like I _need_ to. Does this make any sense to you? It doesn't to me :P**

 **Well. Here you go. Oh btw, if I do continue this, the title is most likely going to change a few times, but for now...**

 _ **Howling**_

 **Also, the picture for this story is the character. And I don't own WoW or anything, etc.  
**

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The commander stood in silence and stared out into the snow from the entrance to the great hall, eyes not really focused on anything in particular. He felt as far away as he looked, his mind lost, drifting somewhere with the howling of the wind and the Frostwolves. One sound was a comfort, the other brought about nightmares, yet both sounds were so similar. The calling of the wolves stole his heart, keeping him locked in place as he strained elongated ears to grasp at the sound, to pick it out from the maddening wailing of the wind. The wailing... Horrible, unending, invading... Ripping the night air apart with shrieks and screams, the memories they invoked sickening his heart.

Faces rushed at him from the frantic wall of white snow just beyond the shelter of the hall, mouths agape as they wailed with the wind. Their clawed hands ripped at his clothes and skin, at his soul and his sanity. He clamped hands over his ears and shut his eyes tight, but he couldn't shake the visions this time. Every day the memories and nightmares got a little bit closer to winning, to taking him over just as the Scourge had taken over his life all those years ago. For him...

The Invasion had never ended.

It was a siege, an assault he couldn't keep up with, a million tentacles and threads of his broken, ripped up life tangled around his wrists and ankles, forever dragging him under. Into The deep, dark, black below. The underbelly of his insanity. He _knew_ he was losing his mind, he was losing this battle. He was losing himself. And often he was tempted to give up, again, as he had done before when the pain had been far too great, far too real, far too present and recent to handle. He would wash everything down with arcane magics and alcohol, draining bottles and magical essences all the same.

He was young, startlingly young for an elf to hold such position as one of the garrison commanders for the Azerothian Horde, a key figure in the fight against Draenor's Iron Horde. But he felt old, ancient even. Perhaps it was the blood in his veins, with only three ancestors in his lineage on his father's side between himself and the Highborne his people once were, thousands of years ago. The Highborne blood in him was much higher than in others of his people, but being a Noble's son it _should_ be that way. Or so he supposed...

But whatever the reason, he felt old. His armor felt too heavy when he wore it, his heart even heavier, he found himself sleeping less and less but tired at the same time. He would lay in bed and stare at the knots in the wood planks of the walls. There would be times where he felt halfway dead, as if his soul was separate from his body. He supposed this was what Hyasist often felt like as one of the Forsaken, she had explained it once before as some sort of detachment, a feeling but also an... Un-feeling? The opposite of a feeling... It seemed to match this. But who could truly know?

All the same... He knew he was losing. He could destroy all the Humans on Azeroth for what they'd done to his people and his father, he could kill every demon for what had been done to his wife and children, every undead for what that bastard Arthas had done to his people and his mother, win again and again on the battlefield against the Alliance. But this was one battle he would lose, and the worst part was knowing it. Being aware was a horrible thing at times. Being aware of your failure when it came to being a _person_ was even worse. He often hated his own existence, self hatred coiled and hot, ready to strike like an iron snake bathed in fire. The ways he would inadvertently punish himself for existing hurt just about the same as a bite from something like that.

He opened his eyes to face the snow, hoping maybe it could cool the seething rage and freeze the roiling fear that had poisoned him so. He shed his furs, leaving them on the steps beside his bow. He felt empty when it left his hand, but he forced himself to shake away the off feeling it gave him not to feel its weight in his fingers or against his back. In cloth pants with a thin shirt and simple boots he stepped out into the raging storm of a wild Frostfire night.

He began to walk, willing the cold to claim him, fighting the howling of the wind. He wandered aimlessly through his garrison, hardly able to see more than two feet in front of him, and found himself at the gates to the stables. The stablehands had put up a barrier of skins and hides to shelter the animals within. Before he realized it, his numb fingers closed around the rough, ice-caked fabric flap that served as a door and entered.

Inside all the hunters' pets and everyone's mounts were huddled together asleep around a firepit in the center of the stable. The stablehands were asleep, too, in their cots. All rested on a night like this. All but himself.

Frostbite lifted his head, the great white Frostwolf looking at him with that very same looked he'd donned the moment hunter and beast laid eyes on each other back in Alterac Valley all those years ago. He lowered himself to sit beside his oldest companion and closest friend. Both elf and wolf heaved a great sigh together, both feeling the strain of a night like this. He ran fingers through Frostbite's fur, warming his hands and calming himself. He closed his eyes again, relishing in the memory his mind had latched onto now. It was one of the few good ones he had, and he did not want to let it go... But before he could even fight it, Jaerim had fallen asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Yay. More writing. Yes *Insert apology for taking a long time with this fic***

 **So I guess this is going to actually be a real thing now. Yep, so cool.**

 **Hey you know something? Depressions _sucks_. Yeah.**

 **Enjoy or something. I dont really know.**

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"...Commander, what are you doing out here?" It was one of their healers talking to him, another elf, Rhea. She was shaking his shoulder and yelling over the wind. But he didn't turn to face her, he didn't even have an answer for her.

It was still night when he awoke. He'd wandered back out into the snow for reasons he still wasn't really sure of. Now he found himself going in the direction of the caves where the fishermen and herbalists worked, sheltered behind great black, volcanic walls. He felt lost as he wandered through the garrison he'd helped to build, his sense of direction was thrown off, a hollowness put in its place. He imagined that if the wind blew hard enough, it'd howl through the many holes and hollow spaces in his heart.

He had dreamed something, probably a rotting memory, but he couldn't recall what it was. And not knowing made him feel like he was missing something important, as if the knowledge of that dream was the most important thing in his life. But he could only bring about one little sliver of the dream. Snow, it had been snowing, there had been deep snowdrifts all about him. But it wasn't like this storm. It fell slowly, softly, silently. There was no wind, only a thick chill to the air that almost seemed alive, vivid, animated but still. That was all he could drag out of his mind.

Rhea was still right behind him when he reached the caves, and a small part of him felt cruel for having ignored her the entire walk. She'd been his ally for a long time now, since Runathath was alive, since the battles in Pandaria and the Siege of Orgrimmar. He didn't know much about her, though, he didn't even know her full first name. Just the shortened version; Rhea. But then again, he'd never asked her about the rest. In fact, he hadn't asked much about her at all. In some ways he regretted it, but in others it seemed better this way. Attachment was a curse after all, one that he'd fallen victim to many times already. He didn't intend to be so foolish ever again. In a world like theirs, where war and bloodshed happened on a daily basis, you couldn't afford to forge true relationships. Relationships were like faulty machinery. You and whoever you were going to try and get closer to went into the machine, and after some time you came out either all chewed up and mangled or dead. The same went for the other person you'd thrown into the machine along with you.

He came to the pools in the cave, the wind screaming around them more than ever now, and plugged his ears as he stared down at the figure on the surface of the water. It was his reflection, he was sure of it. It mimicked his movements and blinked and breathed when he did, but it looked so unfamiliar. Was this him? He had avoided mirrors for quite some time now for he found that the dark circles around his eyes too closely resembled the gaunt look of the undead elves that wandered the scar just south of Silvermoon. Now his face was even more ghastly than it had been four months ago. He looked so tired, so weathered, the sharp scar along his right cheek followed the skin that was stretched over his face, curving inward where his cheeks were now hollowed out. He looked sickly, in fact he looked worse than he even felt.

There were still many things about him that were the same. His hair was still blond, just much longer now, still pulled up into the same sloppy ponytail as before. His eyes were still fel-tainted, his ears still dotted with little nicks and scars. He was clearly still in good shape, though perhaps a little too skinny for his liking. For a moment he could almost hear Runathath telling him to eat more. 'You'll catch no women with no muscle on that lanky frame of yours.' His warrior cousin would say- all while downing a bowl of stew, he imagined.

For a moment he could almost smile, but then his eyes were staring down into themselves in the pool at his feet. He wondered if he was the only person who couldn't see a soul in the eyes of his reflection. When he looked at himself, he didn't see the sentient, vivid... Aliveness? That he could see in the eyes of others. It was like merely looking at a painting or a photograph. All was still, unblinking and quiet, and the person in the picture did not exist. Was it like this for everyone when they looked at their reflections? He didn't know.

A fish swimming lazily through the water sent ripples across his image, breaking it, at the same time as Rhea's hand came to rest on his shoulder. He finally turned to look at her. She bore a look on concern, lips pursed, dark eyebrows that didn't match her blonde-dyed hair scrunched together.

"You are not well..." her hand moved down his arm, holy energy trickling out between her fingers like ink in water as she checked him over. He shrugged it away before the ugly inside him was exposed for all the world- or at least for Rhea- to see. He didn't want the therapy today, he didn't want the false, temporary feeling of relief. It would only serve to make the paperwork waiting for him in the hall easier to do and the attack plans easier to coordinate properly. The howling of the wind would still be heard, the memories would still be raw, most of his family would still be dead.

He turned away from her, pretending to look at something else. "I'm quite fine," He lied. "What are you doing out here?"

Rhea's frown deepened, "I asked you that first." She stated.

Not finding anything acceptable to stare at he turned back to sigh he let out mingled with the swirling air in the caves. It suddenly felt much too cold.

Once again her hand found his arm and she pulled him back toward the Garrison Hall. "Let's go back to the hall, you shouldn't be out in this cold without the proper clothes," She scolded. "At the very least wear a cloak..."

The sound of her voice trailed off to become a part of the howling wind as they made the small journey back to the warmth of the hall. A shudder escaped him as he imagined Rhea, too, being dragged into the ranks of undead like the millions of others had all those years ago, her voice joining the choir that haunted him unendingly on windy nights.

The calling of the native Frostwolves slowed his pace for a moment, his ears twitching to attention to catch the sound before he was pulled off in the direction of the hall once more. He let himself relax into the warmth of the brazier-lit building and, ignoring the questioning glances from the others, tried to catch glimpses of the comforting sound one last time as the hall's iron door shut behind him with a clang.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello again, after a very, very long time. I read over this the other day and regained inspiration for this fic. I still want to tell Jaerim's story, bit by bit. A piece of his history scattered here and there.**

 **The current timing of this story is in Warlords of Draenor. That is "present day" in this story- as of this chapter. For each chapter about the past there will be another chapter in the present that will eventually lead up to the current events in Legion. The events in the past will not always be in chronological order, either. I guess I should let you know that now. Sometimes they will, and for the most part the 'main' ones will be, but some of the lesser memories will just be scattered from different time periods.**

 **Anyway, here is chapter three after, like, a year or something.**

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 _Fifteen Years Ago..._

Decades seem to come and fade so quickly when you witness those you care about die violently right in front of you, their blood running down the white stone walks like spilled ink on paper, pooling around you and mixing with your own where you lay.

-Or so Jaerim learned that day as the skies filled with smoke and ash that blocked out even the sun itself. He lay gasping and hiccuping, choking on the blood bubbling up into his throat from his lungs and the ash that filled his nose and mouth, that turned the world gray. His eyes stung with tears and embers, the city he'd fought so hard to defend quivering behind the layer of teardrops that gathered heavily on his lower lids before tumbling down much like his fellow Farstriders had from the spire tops.

Everything was dark, something he was far from accustomed to, even when he knew instinctively that it was only the midafternoon. Where there had been blue there was black, where there had been gold there was red and silver, where there had been white there was gray, ugly and mocking, gathering thicker and thicker by the minute like false snow. He looked everywhere in an effort to spy something familiar and beautiful before he died alongside everyone else.

He finally settled on his mother's hair. Even now, in death, it was as vibrant and beautiful as it had always been. Red like summer, red like the sun-tipped leaves, with gold highlights racing through the ends. He had always been fascinated with it, especially as a child. He had used it to pick her out of the crowd at celebrations, tugged on it when she would hold him. It was her signature, as unique as she had been.

In a world of nobles she had been daring and unorthodox. Born to but a family of Farstriders. She was a master marksmen who rivalled the Windrunner sisters in skill and cleverness. When his father married her, they said it had been almost as scandalous as when his uncle fell in love with the human servant girl... In fact that incident had been the only thing to catch the attention of the gossipers away from Jaerim's parents after forty years.

Being a noble didn't matter when you were dead, in fact being a noble didn't matter at all. Everyone was the same, regardless of your bloodline or the deeds and names of your ancestors. Individuality only existed when you were alive, but no one was truly special. Everyone was different individually but as a whole they were all the same, it was a concept he hadn't been able to fully grasp until today, until right then. In the end you were dead and that was it, there was no going back, no flaunting your bloodline in the afterlife, no changing what had already transpired. Regrets were to be left as they were- and he didn't buy for a _second_ that someone had no regrets because _that_ was a Gods-be-damned _lie_.

In the end you were dead. In the end he was, too.

Even for all her skill she lay dead before him, having died to defend him as a mother always defends her children. And for what? He had watched as the monster, Arthas, cut her down as if she were nothing, tossing her to the side as he strode onwards in his dark journey. Jaerim had failed her, had wasted the chance that she had given him to live, traded it away in a fit of rage over her death, only to fall to skeletal foot soldiers.

She had died for nothing...

A shadow, darker than the smoke in the sky, heavier than the civilian bodies piled on his legs, came to hover above him. He wondered... _Was this death?_

There was the clang of armor as someone fell to their knees beside him. Hands gripped his shoulders tightly. "Jaerim!" The voice was distorted, twisted and trailing away from him, but instantly recognizable.

Though the lids were as heavy as stone, he opened his eyes. Giizheg knelt over him, helmet off, tears making lines through the ash on his cheeks. His white hair was soiled with blood and cinders and hung limply around them, matted in some places. It was almost startling to see his younger cousin in such a state, he supposed he might have been alarmed if not for the heaviness that crawled through his limbs and locked him against the bloodied pavement.

As he closed his eyes he felt Giizheg pull the bodies off him and curl one arm beneath his back to prop him up. He coughed violently as the blood that had previously been polling in his mouth ran down his throat again.

"Ann'da!" Jaerim heard Giizheg call for his father and then the heavy footsteps of someone clad in plate. He opened his eyes once more, still sputtering and coughing violently, and watched as his uncle hovered over him. He watched as he whispered something to Giizheg and then knelt beside him just as his son did. He felt both the paladins work quickly to pull away his armor and then their bare hands against his heaving chest.

Light encased him, as bright as the fallen Sun, and then pain as blinding as the light itself tore screams from him and he remembered nothing as his eyes rolled back into his skull.

Jaerim sat shivering in the sheets. He had sweat through his nightclothes again and so he stripped them away and tossed him into the corner. He gave his body a moment to stop shaking before laying back against the bed, trying to vanish the image of his empty-eyed mother and her maggot-covered corpse as it shambled along the Dead Scar a few weeks after the battle. He had found her that way as they made their escape south, away from Quel'thalas and into Lordaeron. She was still wearing the pendant his father had given her.

He had been unable to kill her, even when she tried to rip his face off with her bony, talon-like fingers. Giizheg, as always, came to the rescue and put an end to her. They burned her, as fire was the only way to truly keep her from the Scourge's hold, and let her ashes float down the Elrendar river and out to sea.

Jaerim had the pendant in a box somewhere, far from the Garrison, but in a place equally as snowy...

He did not dare to think of that place.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys. Sorry this one is short. I started school and I'm really busy. Crazy busy. Falling asleep on my floor doing homework busy.**

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Sometimes Jaerim wondered how someone so short could be so damned strong. This thought once again came to mind as he watched Giizheg lift a wooden crate filled to the brim with plate armor over his head and into the supply cart as if it weighed _nothing_. He was working with the peons, eager to be of assistance as usual, helping Orcs that were easily twice his size as they struggled to load the carts.

Once the job was done the peons thanked him and Giizheg merely smiled and laughed. Sometimes Jaerim wondered how someone who'd gone through as much as this weathered paladin could be so kind hearted, so _gentle_ and _caring_.

He especially pondered this as he glanced at the one-eyed Draenei youngling who stood off to the side. She, too, had been helping with the crates as much as she could. Wherever Giizheg went she was sure to follow, like a little lost lamb in a den of wolves- although that last part was sort of true.

The girl, Taluulai was her name, was his cousin's new project, an apprentice of sorts, perhaps even something of a squire. Even now, days into her stay, Jaerim was unsure of how he felt toward her. She'd suffered, having lost her parents and an eye to the Iron Horde, but was there enough suffering there to reforge her into a soldier? What if there was _too much?_ He certainly knew how the latter could end up, how terribly far one might go for revenge...

...So far that they might lose themselves.

In the end all Jaerim could do was keep his distance and wish the girl luck from the shadows. If he were less callous perhaps he'd talk to her, sit her down and tell her his tale, commiserate and show her that she was not alone. But Jaerim was cold and few knew his tale, only one man here besides himself and that was the very paladin who now mentored the girl. He would try to have faith in his cousin as his cousin did the Light.

It was hard to look at her. Had they shared a more similar life cycle, Jaerim's own daughter would be only a little younger than Taluulai in physical terms, _had she lived_. Bitter thoughts were sour in his head as he watched the two of them walk toward the tavern, jealousy biting at his heart. As he watched them go he wished someone would trust in him again, as Taluulai did Giizheg, as his own children once did him.

It was too much. Quickly he ripped his eyes away, settling his harsh gaze on one of the peons who subsequently shook beneath Jaerim's stare and scuttled off to whatever chore was next.

Jaerim cursed the amount of down time he'd been given since his return from liberating the Bloodmaul Slag Mines. He was "recovering" from being thrown against the wall by Slave Watcher Crushto, but he was long since healed. He knew that in truth he was being given a break because of those reports sent to the Warchief. His mental instability was no secret throughout the garrison. Most knew of, or had even witnessed, his breakdowns but it wasn't something unusual in a military stronghold filled with war-battered veterans and soldiers struggling with all they'd seen and done. It was his position that had warranted this "break" and his importance to their progress on Draenor. As unstable as he might be, Jaerim knew they needed him. They needed his experience in battle, his skill as one of the most talented marksmen in the Horde, and his ability to lead. For all his faults he could be inspiring and charismatic when it counted and terrifying enough to keep both their enemies and their own unruly soldiers in line.

Still Vol'jin had given him a week of recovery time with strict orders not to leave the Garrison walls. He was limited to stalking the paths of their stronghold in miserable, brooding silence. It was entirely too confining. The longer he sat still, the worse he felt. His body itched to be out in the snowdrifts hunting Iron Horde and his mind longed for the solitude of the wilderness. Just he and his wolves alone, out on the ice far from this mess of politics and battle plans. Sometimes he just wanted to leave everything behind, but then he would realize that he really had nowhere left to go.

Not anymore.

He could wander the wilds of Azeroth or the ruins of Outland but where would it lead him? It would bring him no closer to his goals. He would just be locking himself away behind another curtain of solitude, just as he'd done after Icecrown, and in reality there was not a single place left where someone he knew could not track him down. He was too infamous in the circle of champions for the Horde, he'd been too many places and met and helped and hurt too many people. He'd both saved and destroyed lives in his time since leaving Quel'thalas. The anonymity he'd once had in his early days as an adventurer was lost forever, away in some Kaldorei ruin on Kalimdor where he'd left the rest of himself...

He wondered what his son would think of him now. What Setirion, who had once looked up to him as if he were a hero, who had followed him everywhere like a little blond shadow, would think of the husk of an elf his father had deteriorated into.

Jaerim knew people still looked up to him, but instead of his children it was soldiers and civilians. Instead of love and trust there was admiration of his ability to turn members of the Alliance into pincushions and to end the lives of generals from the branch of a tree hundreds of yards away. He'd been there to kill Illidan, he'd fought Arthas at the foot of the Frozen Throne, he'd ridden upon Deathwing's back and lodged arrows in his eyes, put Garrosh in chains. But no matter the "heroic" deeds he'd done, no matter the tyrants he'd felled or the crises he'd helped to avert, it was all just clearing the way for his burning path of vengeance as he chased after the Legion like a starving wolf intent on devouring them all.

He'd been starved of peace for so long now that he hardly felt anything but emptiness anymore. The pains that came with hunger had diminished and fallen away some time ago. He stood now as the skin and bones of himself. Everything that had once fulfilled him was missing. He was an alpha to his wolves, but a dying one. Soon enough someone would take his place, his dreams would die away, he'd fall to some new, unfathomable danger just like so many others did every time there was another threat. Life as an Azerothian was already a daily struggle even without the hellfire in which he seemed to burn.

Sometimes Jaerim wondered if no else had yet realised that there was no point to their continued struggling, that there would always be a new threat or the return of an old one and that peace would _never_ come, or if they just chose to ignore the truth and blindly follow their instinctive Will to live.

Sometimes he wondered if that's just what he was doing and that his stupid Will as a living creature to continue one was all that kept him from lying down and dying right there on the snow beneath his boots.


End file.
